"Environmental stickers don't mean shit when they are stuck to CARS!" - Bumper sticker on the Sport Utility Bike That Ate Detroit. Take a standard bicycle, add a Free Radical kit from Xtracycle, a Stokemonkey Human Electic Hybrid Drive, and optional extras like airhorn, full suspension leather saddle, handlebars and footpegs for passengers, and a box for extra battery packs, and you get this. Put together to replace a car this has got to be the ultimate machine for a world without affordable fossil fuels. From the bikes owner:
Here's My Story and I'm Sticking To It
I've
found an alternative to using a car in everday life. I'm over 60 years
old... if this works for me, it will work for just about anybody.
I work as Home Care Nurse in the hills of San Francisco. I put in 25 to 40 miles a day. I haul about 30 lbs of gear.
I like: Clean air. Exercise with daily living (no gym fees!)
Freedom from: oil changes/plugs/tuneups/valve adjustment car insurance/registration/DMV lines WAITING IN TRAFFIC Endless Oil War. I think one of these should be government issue for every man, woman and child, who chooses to live without owning a car. It would be a start anyway... (they could just use my share of the funding for new roads to pay for mine). I think what appeals to me most about this beastie is that it illustrates beautifully that the end of cheap fossil fuels does not mean we have to go back to the stone age. There are new ways forward... first, we have to imagine them. Here's another... the optibike.
(btw. the inventor of the Stokemonkey, Cleverchimp, also has a pretty cool blog which I think you'll enjoy.)
8:57:24 PM
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